Written By BiharWatch on Saturday, August 02, 2008 | 9:08 PM

Our Environment is contaminated by many dangerous chemicals. They arein our rivers, countryside, cities and in the air. Persistent OrganicPollutants, the most dangerous, accumulate in the environment and ourfood and are believed to interfere with reproductive and immunesystems, imitate hormones and cause cancer.

1st of June 2008 was an important day for the New European ChemicalTesting Policy called REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation& restriction of CHemicals). In Helsinki, Finland, the EuropeanChemicals Agency which manages the implementation of this legislationstarted the process of pre-registration of existing substances.Before 1981 in Europe chemicals were put on the market without beingadequately safety tested. REACH aims to classify the toxicity ofabout 30,000 substances used in quantities of over 1 tonne a year butstill depends significantly on animal testing. When you consider thetechnological advances that have been made in recent years and thatmany animal tests have remained unchanged for over 60 years this maynot be good enough. As this will ultimately determine which chemicalswill be allowed to be used in Europe and which will not this willmake a profound difference to the number of hazardous chemicals inour environment.

The European Commission has estimated that Reach will cost industrybetween 2.8bn and 5.2bn euros over 11 years. This will be aninefficient use of resources if reliance is on outdated animaltesting instead of making the most of new technological advances.Many alternatives exist which are quicker, cheaper and more reliablethan animal tests. However, for these to be trusted and validatedtakes investment and a commitment to make medical progress apriority. REACH must make sure that all chemicals are tested with themost accurate and trustworthy methods and new techniques must bedeveloped if only animal testing is available.

The criteria necessary to validate alternatives are strict andcomprehensive. Validated alternatives are legally trusted as suitablereplacements for animal tests. However, the European Commission'slist of approved methods does not include non-animal techniques thatwere approved for scientific validity in 2007 by the European Centrefor the Validation of Alternative Methods ( ECVAM ). This is a delaywhich has been criticised by the MEPs of the European parliamentbecause it will encourage companies to avoid using validated humanbased alternatives and continue using animal tests instead. ECVAMdoes important work but if they are to achieve what we all want - acomprehensive system of scientific tests to accurately find andeliminate all toxic chemicals from the environment - their effortsmust be supported and acknowledged.

Concerned citizens can contact their MEPs and ask them to support atevery opportunity the validation and approval of alternative methodsfor all future testing of chemicals.

For UK Citizens, protecting ourselves from dangerous substances canstart in the home. It is well known from research that our homes arecontaminated with many hazardous substances. Some of these come fromtraffic fumes and industrial pollution. Many more are present inhousehold products and safeguarding our health and environmentincludes testing these with modern methods we can trust. Early DayMotion 1215 asks the British Government to take measures to preventthe testing of household products and their ingredients on animals.For these chemicals testing will only be by validated non-animalmethods based on human biology. Ideally about 200 MP signatures areneeded for this to be influential.

Complete details on EDM 1215 including who has signed athttp://edmi.parliament.uk

For more information visit:-http://www.europarl.europa.euhttp://ec.europa.eu/environment/http://www.eceae.org